Lost wallet and found faith in humanity: a Thanksgiving story

I don’t remember when or where I bought my wallet, but I’d guess that the leather accessory is at least 15 years old. Along with the essential plastic cards and licenses, it’s bursting at the seams with BART tickets and business cards that date back to my 1990s job as a courtroom reporter in Los Angeles. Prominently displayed in the interior window is my California Highway Patrol press pass from my time as the editor of my college newspaper. The expiration date for this artifact is 03/01/96.

The Benji of of wallets: It always comes home.

It needs to be replaced. It’s also a constant reminder that people are basically good. Three times this wallet has been lost. Three times it has made an incredible journey back to me. In addition to holding a few $1 off coupons for Amoeba Records and a ticket stub from my first Giants game with my wife, somewhere nestled in this billfold is my faith in humanity.

I’ve witnessed many not-so-random acts of unkindness during my lifetime. When I look at my cell phone, I’m reminded of my previous phone which I lost last year. Someone found it, answered my first two calls to my own number, and decided that holding on to the phone was more lucrative than the $50 reward I suggested. (It’s a lonely and helpless feeling to text your own phone with a ransom offer, and then get no response. Give me back my son phone!)

But in the spirit of the holiday season, I’m going to focus on the good today. I’m giving thanks for the people who made it possible for this crappy old embarrassment of a wallet to remain a part of my life.

Las Vegas (1997): A few years before my friends and I started our Spring Training trip, we participated in a slightly more drunken and much less responsible annual journey to Las Vegas. While staying in the Imperial Palace, arguably the sleaziest casino on the main strip, I drank one too many free Jack Daniels on the rocks and inexplicably left my wallet on the edge of the urinal. In other words, I deserved to lose it. My theory on what happened next: The wallet was found by the only good samaritan within a three mile radius, and was turned in to the last most honest casino employee on the planet. Surprised to discover that casinos even have a lost and found, I nearly died of shock when my wallet was returned to me. With more than $100 still inside. That’s the closest I’ve ever come to joining the seminary.

San Francisco (2000): This story is not as good as the other two, so I’ll keep it short. My wallet fell out of my bag while playing pick-up basketball at the Koret-USF gym in San Francisco. Another player found it and handed it to someone at the front desk. The employee could have cross-referenced my driver’s license with my membership and called me at home, but instead placed it in the lost and found until I picked it up. Still, all the money was there and no one bought a semester’s worth of textbooks or a keg of Miller Genuine Draft with my Visa. Definitely a happy ending.

Oakland (Nov. 20, 2010): I took my son to “Megamind” at the Grand Lake Theater for a Sunday afternoon matinee, and likely dropped my wallet when I retrieved my custom 3D glasses from my pocket. (Yes, I bring my own 3D glasses to movies. The cinematic equivalent of that a**hole who carries a hand-carved billiard stick into a bar.) I must have bought everything with cash that day, because I didn’t even know I lost the wallet until I received the following Facebook message at 9 p.m., titled “Your Wallet”:

hey there, my husband was at the grand lake theater and found your wallet under the seat. we would be happy to drop it off by your id address tomorrow or if you need it tonight feel free to come grab it yourself. we live near XXXX XXX in oakland.

cheers

Damn, this kid has a beautiful head of hair.

I offered to pick it up, but before we could make arrangements by e-mail, this kind woman called me the next morning to tell me she was five minutes from my house. As I was finishing a hastily-written thank you note, her husband walked up to my door and handed me my wallet. His only explanation: “If I ever lose my wallet, I’d want someone to do the same thing.”

A few minutes later, I was driving to work, and heard the 187th story this year telling me how horrible Oakland is. Something about the city being one of the crime centers of the universe. And all I could do was scream at the KCBS anchor. “I lost my wallet in Oakland this weekend and the people who found it BROUGHT IT TO MY HOUSE. Add that to your crime statistics.”

I changed my mind. I’m holding on to this wallet for another 15 years.

PETER HARTLAUB is the pop culture critic at the San Francisco Chronicle and founder of this parenting blog, which admittedly sometimes has nothing to do with parenting. You can follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/peterhartlaub.